London Newspaper Reports That Kennedy’s Alleged Assassin Returned to Mid-east Twice

The Evening Standard reported today that an unidentified Arab Government has produced startling new evidence on the background of Sirhan Sirhan, the accused assassin of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and is supplying the United States with information that “may open up an entirely new line of inquiry into the motivation and organization’ of the Kennedy murder.

According to a front page article by Jon Kimche, the new information shows that Sirhan, whose full name is given as Sirhan Bisrara Sirhan Abu Khatar, was first brought to the United States in 1948, at the age of four, not in 1957 at the age of 12, as previously announced and that he returned to the Middle East three times for extended periods. The purported record also shows, according to Mr. Kimche, that he was married near Amman, Jordan, on June 27, 1957 (if correct, he was 12 years old at the time) and that he returned to the Middle East in 1964 and 1966. In the former year, he reportedly spent seven months there, four of them in Damascus. In 1966, his stay included a five month stretch in Cairo. He returned to the United States early in 1967. The Arab Government, said Mr. Kimche, is convinced that its records are ac- curate but they are being sent to the United States to check against information developed by the FBI.

The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.